00:02:31.980Oh, man. The amount of facts in that minute and a half of good morning, America, objectively made up.
00:02:40.200Yeah. We need to do like a frame by frame analysis.
00:02:44.140This is like a narrative that is all over the place in our sort of media ecosystem.
00:02:50.660Right. There is sort of like this underlying, very simple narrative. Right. Shoplifting is out of control. Yes. And the heart of the problem is organized retail crime. There's a ton of discourse around San Francisco as like the epicenter of it.
00:03:09.340Yeah. In May of 2021, the New York Times ran an article titled San Francisco's shoplifting surge.
00:03:16.460And then later in the year, the Wall Street Journal ran one titled San Francisco has become a shoplifters paradise.
00:03:23.900Walgreens announced that they were closing locations in San Francisco due to the issue.
00:03:28.760Target made public statements to investors about their concerns about theft across the country.
00:03:34.460The New York Post published a story titled The Shoplifting Epidemic Taking Over America.
00:03:41.440Police departments are making statements.
00:03:44.280And to really heighten the drama, there has been like a consistent stream of viral surveillance
00:03:52.840footage videos of groups of people, usually teenagers, doing smash and grab robberies,
00:03:59.660meaning they bust into a store all at once, ransack the place, grab everything they can, run out.
00:04:05.760It was very funny in this clip where they're like, they know exactly when to hit the stores.
00:04:10.600First of all, it's not even clear that that's like true.
00:04:12.420And secondly, it doesn't take a lot of coordination to do that.
00:04:15.580It's just like, yeah, you'd probably go during the day when there are fewer employees.
00:06:04.900It increased in 2022, but the number is still below where it was in 2019,
00:06:11.060which is itself below where it was in 2018.
00:06:14.240And the same is true across San Francisco.
00:06:17.880Now, the 2021 shoplifting rates in all of California were well below the pre-pandemic rates.
00:06:25.880There was a 29 percent spike in 2022 as like reopening continued, but it's still below pre-pandemic levels.
00:06:34.080But if you look at just San Francisco itself, there actually is an increase.
00:06:38.880the raw number of shoplifting reports in 2022 is about 19 percent higher than it was in 2019.
00:06:46.340It's actually pretty significant. It is. So I saw that and I thought, OK, simple enough.
00:06:51.560The New York Times wrote their piece about the shoplifting surge in May 2021. That was basically
00:06:58.180fictional. But a year later or so, they have somehow stumbled into the truth. Right. The
00:07:03.980fears of a widespread shoplifting epidemic might be bullshit. But if you look at San Francisco,0.98
00:07:10.360there is a noticeable spike, right? Open and shut, or so I thought, until I started digging in
00:07:16.800further. The average number of monthly reported shoplifting incidents in San Francisco
00:07:21.660collapsed during the pandemic, of course, starts steadily rising as things open up in 2021.
00:07:28.080But then in September 2021, the number doubles.
00:07:32.980So a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle takes a look at the data and they realize that nearly all of that increase comes from a single target downtown.
00:07:41.800In August of 2021, it reported 13 shoplifting incidents in September 154.
00:08:10.600So a blogger poked around and found at least one other instance of this where a single Safeway in November of 2021 jumped from one shoplifting incident per month to 120.
00:08:24.240So if you control for these outlier stores, the spike in shoplifting in San Francisco that began in late 2021 and has carried through to the present actually goes away.
00:08:49.820Two, to the extent you can rely on it, there's no reason to believe that there's been a shoplifting spike in San Francisco or anywhere else.
00:09:15.680So despite all of the media coverage, police, corporate executives, all saying theft is up, there's really no data showing that theft is up.
00:09:23.620And the most reliable data that we have indicates that it's not.
00:09:27.220Not only that, but the media panic started at a time when shoplifting was demonstrably down, not up.
00:14:53.580The second problem here is that as organized retail crime has gotten more attention, retailers have invested more in stopping it.
00:15:02.500So the report shows that increasing percentages of retailers have dedicated ORC teams within their like loss prevention departments or whatever.
00:15:13.640So, yes, they're finding more instances of it, but that could very easily be because they're now looking for it.
00:15:34.120That jumped out to me because numbers from their own surveys have reported that external theft, including organized retail crime, was about 37 percent of all shrink.
00:17:15.540And then second, he's using the wrong year's data.
00:17:18.320And I assume he's doing that because he's just been using that same talking point for years and years on end or something along those lines.
00:17:25.880Then the National Retail Federation uses his number to say that half of all shrink is organized crime, not realizing that what they're actually doing is just comparing their own total shrink number from 2015 to their total shrink number from 2021.
00:18:35.180It's not uncommon that these retail organizations are just like making these blatant misrepresentations.
00:18:41.740A couple of years ago, the head of the California Retailers Association said that businesses in San Francisco and Oakland alone lose $3.6 billion annually to organize retail crime.
00:18:57.020The Los Angeles Times was looking at this and they pointed out that would be 25 percent of all sales in San Francisco and Oakland.
00:19:22.440And the Westboro Baptist Church has never lied to Congress.
00:19:25.180You would want people to like conclude something from this and be like, look, maybe this is happening, maybe it's not.
00:19:31.120But like there's huge bad faith actors at the very center of this and they need to come with actual facts to us before we're going to believe them.
00:19:40.040And until they do, the story is the retail lobby is trying to push a narrative for which there's no evidence.
00:19:46.660We're partway through the most serious report in the business about organized retail crime and it is nonsense.
00:19:54.720Yeah. In the report, they say, quote, the lack of quality data has stymied efforts to raise public awareness about the scale and consequences of ORC.
00:20:06.180No, it hasn't. Well, first of all, that's one way of putting it right.
00:20:09.380Yeah. Like the lack of quality data is why you don't know the scale of consequences of organized retail crime.
00:20:16.360They're literally just working backwards from their conclusion that this is all really happening.0.56
00:20:20.360And it has the fucking opposite is true. Right.0.89
00:20:22.580Yeah, it has to stop you from doing a moral panic about it.
00:20:40.840It's always a risk sending you the full report because now I know in two days time you're going to just get bored and read it and then text me something that like I missed that I should have included in this episode.
00:20:49.480OK, the funniest part of this report is not the awful data.
00:20:53.940It's when they scour social media for evidence of organized retail crime.
00:21:00.380At one point they say, quote, as of November 2022, a sub-community on Reddit contained
00:21:07.360discussions about retail theft, best practices, retailer loss prevention strategies, and tips
00:21:13.520on the circumvention of anti-theft technologies.0.99
00:21:38.840It says these screenshots from the popular social media website Reddit indicate thieves are aware of retailer security practices.0.99
00:21:46.920Although posts such as these are generally aimed at amateur shoplifters,
00:21:51.200Org booster operations also benefit from the availability of this information.
00:21:56.180So they're even acknowledging that it's just like, it's just random people.
00:21:59.620They're literally being like, look, look, this is, uh, this is screenshots of the posts of
00:22:05.580seven teenagers, but professionals might benefit from the insight that these teenagers are
00:22:12.700spreading on the internet again this is the most like this is like the number one report like this
00:22:19.040is this is the best exactly they have that's just the same as the videos it's like we now have the
00:22:24.160technology to do this but 20 years ago shoplifters also would have been sharing like this store's
00:22:29.420easy this store's hard whatever right but cops were cops were too old to know how to go on message
00:22:34.680boards 20 years ago okay go to page 29 of the pdf 29 oh this one says orc likely to expand in scale
00:22:45.020comma sophistication that's right oh yeah it's always this is another moral panic thing it's
00:22:48.820always just around the corner that like there's gonna be evidence for it soon we swear right0.93
00:22:53.660right right so if you look at the top right of this page is a screenshot from tumblr no fuck off0.89
00:23:00.080fuck off a user on tumblr yeah all right yeah can you can you read that a user on tumblr presented0.96
00:23:06.880justifications for retail theft based on anti-capitalist views and arguments that0.99
00:23:12.480theft does not cause financial harm to large retailers got them 4k they're admitting it
00:23:19.380some someone on tumblr says shoplifting is against capitalism and then and and then below that there's
00:23:26.240screenshot from a search on tiktok for like shoplifting tips for borrow from stores dude
00:23:33.080the tumblr guy says that six dollar pair of shades they stuffed in their bra from old navy0.93
00:23:37.340no one's gonna miss it dude damn it's a fucking screenshot of a tumblr post behind this is just0.98
00:23:45.580like dude a child yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah like a kid a kid who's stealing like 140 dollars worth0.99
00:23:54.060of shit from Abercrombie or whatever like you can tell they're just they're so desperate to gin up0.91
00:24:00.080evidence for this like if I was writing a report about like the problem of school shootings in0.99
00:24:04.880America I would have like dates and times of actual school shootings right like actual problems in
00:24:10.920America you don't resort to this thing of like people think it's good online look this is the
00:24:16.180industry's big serious report right everything you've ever heard or read about organized retail
00:24:22.960crime originates with this organization and they are screenshotting tumblr this is i love how you
00:24:29.940keep coming back to this this is a lobbyist led effort to drive public attention to retail crime
00:24:36.020right the the evidence that there's like a huge surge in organized retail crime it's just not
00:24:41.280there like they have a whole report that doesn't show it right yet they are telling the media that
00:24:46.180it's a fact i love that uh doing this show is bringing you to the same level of radicalization
00:24:50.960as me where it's like, Mike, your journalism is like so robust. And you're like, I read the PDF.
00:24:55.840Right. I didn't do anything. All I fucking did was read like the basic primary documents.
00:25:02.660I had a lot more respect for your researching skills before I started doing this. And I was0.93
00:25:06.340like, yes, you are good, but it's not that hard. Literally just reading. Scroll down to page 33
00:25:14.420of the pdf three further research needed on effects of higher felony thresholds and bail
00:25:21.420reform on larceny crime rates okay so we need to research whether like all the shoplifters know
00:25:27.080that there's like a woke prosecutor now we can just like do crimes so this is the end game right
00:25:33.940they are telling the media that this is happening they send out press releases they push it to
00:25:40.600retailers. They lie about it to Congress. And this is why they're looking for public investment
00:25:47.400in their private security. Right. And that means literal money, but it also means opposition to
00:25:55.060progressive criminal justice reforms. What they're saying is, hey, the bulk of the research shows
00:26:00.200that bail reform and higher felony thresholds don't increase theft. But that research was
00:26:05.660conducted before the pandemic. So we need more research. OK, yeah. So keep looking at it till
00:26:11.400we get the result we want. Envision research that agreed with me. Now it's now the picture is not so
00:26:17.460clear, is it? Also, shoplifting is way down in like a 30 year time span. I mean, the numbers are
00:26:22.240always garbage, but it's like if you look at the 90s, it was way higher. So we're criminal penalties0.91
00:26:27.500lower than property crime since has been falling since the 80s as a general rule. And yes, you can
00:26:34.620look at the last several years and it starts you start to see spikes in various different types of
00:26:39.640crime i mentioned uh vehicle thefts uh they're up they're like demonstrably up over the last
00:26:44.680several years and the data on that is relatively reliable because people report their car stolen
00:26:48.980yeah but we're working from a very low baseline right numbers that are historically very low
00:26:56.240and even after the spikes a lot of these uh figures are you know still lower than uh what
00:27:02.080the rates were in the mid-aughts, for example. I want to be clear that this has been like an
00:27:06.940incredibly fruitful lobbying effort. Nine states have implemented laws targeting organized retail
00:27:13.460crime. More than a dozen states have created task forces. There is now a proposed federal
00:27:19.320law being considered that would make it way easier to bring federal theft charges against
00:27:24.040shoplifters. Of course. This is the culmination of a very extensive lobbying effort. And all of
00:27:29.800this media coverage these bullshit reports the goal is to drive government resources toward a0.96
00:27:35.580retailer security and it's working it's working extremely yeah yeah and the whole like myth of0.93
00:27:42.980organization we've seen this over and over again like me and sarah did an episode on street gangs
00:27:48.180for you're wrong about which was genuinely like very radicalizing to me we saw the same kinds of
00:27:53.620messaging around gangs in the 1990s like they're about to come to the suburbs it's like so bad and
00:27:58.560you look into it and it's like three teenagers, you know, these international criminal syndicates,
00:28:03.560that stuff never materialized. And the purpose of this myth of organization is to distract
00:28:12.200ordinary people from like the obvious drivers of petty crime, which is mostly poverty and other
00:28:18.640sort of larger structural factors that we can do something about. You see this rhetoric starting to
00:28:26.260show up, right, of like repeat offenders and like longer prison sentences, higher bails,
00:28:32.780et cetera. And it's like, this is the stuff that drove mass incarceration in the 1990s.
00:28:37.320We're just doing it again. And like we're basically getting a resurgence of like three
00:28:42.480strikes type of rhetoric. The thing that always like strikes me about this is like countries with0.55
00:28:47.940much less petty crime than America, is that because they have larger prison populations
00:28:51.700than we do and like harsher punishments for low level misdemeanors if locking people up worked
00:28:58.560we wouldn't have shoplifting in this country right people vastly underestimate how aggressively
00:29:06.740prosecutions proceed in the united states people think that like these these guys are getting like
00:29:12.340picked up for shoplifting and then just waltzing out of the jail and like spitting in the cop's
00:29:16.720face and being like, I do what I want. No, a lot of people are just getting fucking buried under0.97
00:29:22.240the jail for minor offenses, right? The sort of media narrative always revolves around this like0.96
00:29:30.420general abstract permissiveness that we are not brutal enough. You know, you look at that
00:29:37.160Good Morning America segment. What are they actually doing there? Like, what is it accomplishing?
00:29:42.540It is fostering a sense of fear that creates a permission structure for law enforcement to do whatever the fuck they want with criminals.0.93
00:30:09.620Publicly available information regarding the involvement of traditional transnational organized crime groups, such as those involved in drug trafficking, weapon smuggling, trafficking in persons, cybercrime or corruption networks, or transnational terrorist organizations in ORC, is speculative and lacks specificity.
00:30:32.200It is plausible some of these groups may have some involvement in ORC, given their operational sophistication and the potentially lucrative income stream ORC offers, according to a federal law enforcement investigator and an investigative journalist.
00:30:50.060Like who? They don't even fucking cite it.0.94